Grey's Anatomy: Man on the Moon (10x11)

Okay. Lots to talk about, as always with this show. Let's dive right in.

April's three sisters are in town for her bachelorette party and impending wedding. They are all condescending and call her "ducky," which April explains refers to "ugly duckling." After putting up with them for quite some time, she finally publicly explodes at them and tells them that she's not their awkward unfortunate sister anymore. She fires them from being bridesmaids and elects Christina, Meredith, and Arizona as her new bridesmaids. While this is all going on, Matthew and Jackson have their own drama. The two of them are witness to a man nearly being suffocated because his tie gets stuck in a taxi door as the car drives away. Matthew performs a tracheotomy on the sidewalk, and in the ER Jackson angrily yells at Matthew for doing it wrong. Later, however, Jackson lies to April and says that Matthew didn't mess up. Jackson and Matthew have a talk, and decide that for the sake of April, they need to get along. Matthew encourages Jackson to come to the wedding.

Alright. I've expressed a lot of annoyance about April's plot lines in the past, and I think, oddly, that's because they weren't getting enough attention. Now that the plot has a chance to breathe and develop a bit, I found myself enjoying it. The stuff with Matthew and Jackson was great. I don't like love triangles, but I do like the awkwardness developing between these two men. April's sister's were really obnoxious (intentionally, I believe), and it was enormously satisfying to see April take them down a few pegs. My one hang up is this: it's really silly to believe a woman as beautiful as April was ever an "ugly duckling." I mean, seriously? The girl is flawless.

Bailey is trying to deal with her OCD, and she has a specialist following her around the hospital to moniter her behavior. This specialist eventually has her try to do stitches without engaging in OCD behavior, but this proves to be impossible for Bailey. However, she refuses to take drugs until Webber talks to her and says that the first step is to admit she has a disease, like he did with his alcoholism.

Yes. Thank you. So interesting. I really loved this plot line and everything it said about Bailey, Webber, and their friendship. Ben wasn't in this one, and to be honest I didn't miss him at all. I think Bailey's struggle with OCD is infinitely more interesting than anything going on with her disappointment in Ben. Hopefully now that Bailey's on drugs to manage her compulsion they won't just drop this thread entirely. I'd love to see it continue.

The central medical-related plots were focused on Christina and Meredith and their two very different but very important surgeries using the 3D printer. Christina and Shane (who have been sleeping together) are doing surgery on a baby, and they are getting all sorts of media attention. Meredith and Stephanie, meanwhile, are putting a conduit into a sheep. At first, Christina's surgery looks like it's doing poorly, but then miraculously it starts to work. The opposite happens for Meredith: at first the sheep seems okay, but then it dies. Meredith and Christina have an argument about Shane, who Meredith observes is acting more aggressive lately. Meredith tells Edwards that they will just have to learn from their mistakes and try again on another sheep.

So, this plot made me feel all sorts of bad for Meredith. I mean, here she is doing groundbreaking surgery, with a 3D printer that she got the funding for, but everything is completely overshadowed by Christina's surgery. I don't blame Christina for this necessarily, but it must really suck for Meredith. I like the developing relationship between Shane and Christina, even though I had my hangups in the beginning. However, I'm still a bit nervous about how they're developing this. I think my only real problem with this section was the fight between Meredith and Christina. I really liked the whole polite yet icy thing they had going on, and then suddenly they're fighting about Shane? I think the episode would have been stronger if they had just remained really stoic and fake-nice to one another instead of getting into an actual argument.

Alex's dad comes in to the hospital, and Jo is horrified to see him. Turns out he's been detoxing. Alex wants nothing to do with him, and even tries to kick him out, but Jo insists that he's a patient and that she'll help him. James (that's Alex's dad's name) tells Alex that he knew who he was when he got angry with him at the bar, and has been trying to get sober ever since. While detoxing, James goes through some intense hallucinations, imagining a time back when Alex was a kid. At one point, he actually throws Jo against the wall. Alex interferes, tying his dad down to the bed. He tells Jo that he's been cleaning up his dad's messes for a long time.

I'm a bit torn on this one... really, we haven't seen much of Jo and Alex as a couple. It seems like their entire relationship is just angst and something going wrong and someone (usually Jo) apologizing, and then reset. But we never see them actually spend time together as a couple. This episode just continued that troublesome trend. That being said, I did like the idea of Alex's dad showing up again, because I felt like that plot was truncated and needed to be explored a bit more. Now, here's the thing - I will be enormously annoyed if Alex's dad actually manages to get clean. I'd love it if Alex started to trust his dad, just a little, or started to hope that maybe his dad could actually turn things around. Then, when he inevitably relapses, Alex could turn to Jo for support. Look at me, trying to write the plot for them. But anyways, I think there's a lot of potential with the Alex's dad thing, but I worry about the show focusing on that at the expense of Jo and Alex's relationship. The angst is starting to feel a bit forced.

Okay, last plot. Derek and Callie are working on a patient of their own. The woman involved in their trial is very grumpy and very difficult to work with. She can't get the virtual hand to move. Callie is about ready to give up on her, but Derek has an idea - he tells the woman to focus on her husband, and to relax and think about everything she wants to say to him. Miraculously, the woman is able to reach out (via the metal hand) and touch her husband. Callie's general frustration with this woman can be explained mostly because she and Arizona can't stop arguing about everything. Things get better when Callie realizes that they've just been talking too much, and they have sex instead.

I like this case that Derek and Callie are working on, but it was a bit too cheesy for me that they were able to have a breakthrough using the power of love. The best part of this thread was undoubtedly Callie's relationship with Arizona, which continues to be very problematic and tense. This is so true to how things would really be in a situation like theirs. I hope we continue to see them struggle to find equilibrium.

Alright, so that's all of it! These Grey's Anatomy reviews always run a bit long... sigh. Overall it wasn't one of the more memorable or special episodes, but I still liked it fine.

7/10